Corruption Scandal: Former S/Korean President Park Geun-hye Jailed
A court on Friday ordered the arrest and detention of South Korea’s ousted president Park Geun-Hye in connection to the vast corruption and influence-peddling scandal that led to her impeachment earlier this month.
The former head of state who spend nearly two decades living in the country’s sprawling presidential palace, will now be locked in a cell in Seoul Detention Centre, eating $1.30 meals and doing her own chores.
Prosecutors say Park, 65, who was South Korea’s first woman president, is suspected of bribery, abuse of power, coercion, and leaking government secrets.
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“It is justifiable and necessary to arrest (Park) as key charges were justified and there is risk of evidence being destroyed,” the court said in a statement.
She will join other key figures in the scandal, including her secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil and the heir to the Samsung business empire Lee Jae-Yong, at the Seoul detention centre in Uiwang.
The 65-year-old Park becomes the third former leader to be arrested over corruption in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
It remains unclear whether she will receive any special treatment at the detention centre, but her detention is another disgrace in the decline and fall of a woman seen for decades as the country’s political “princess”.
